Massive San Antonio NSA Data Center Raises Eyebrows

Even as reports break about the size and scope of the National Security Agency’s vast data storage center in Utah, new details are emerging about a second massive NSA center in San Antonio, Texas. According to the Houston Chronicle, “Satellite and aerial imagery show that massive air conditioning units and backup generators have been added to the facility, which is now ringed by barbed-wire fencing. City permits and property tax records show that the complex has been dramatically expanded.” According to sources, the plant will supposedly translate intercepted communications from the NSA; the communications are then forwarded to Maryland for processing.

The data center itself is about 94,000 square feet. It became operational in 2012. But the San Antonio Express-News could find no funding in the Defense Department budgets from 2004 through 2013 for the work at the Sony plant where the NSA center was located. The property on which the data center is located has grown by approximately 135,000 square feet, and is now worth some $72 million. A local bond sale in 2006 estimated that the NSA would be dropping $300 million into the area.

Originally, the NSA was much more transparent about the project, actually holding a job fair to promote their expansion in San Antonio. But from 2007 on, the news about the site has been nonexistent. In 2010, San Antonio residents reported that their garage doors had been opening randomly, and the NSA admitted that its antenna were interfering with garage door openers.